


The Enigma at Apartment Room 201

by orphan_account



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Bittersweet Ending, Friendship, Gen, Ghosts, How Do I Tag, Light Angst, Light-Hearted, Platonic Relationships, dumbassery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:53:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26249764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: George is a ghost that haunts Dream’s apartment. Shenanigans ensue.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 136





	1. URGENT! There’s a ghost haunting my apartment.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first ever fanfic, so uhh please don't be too harsh in critiquing my work! I don't personally know these content creators; I'm merely basing their personalities on their online personas. Also, do note that all the relationships in this fic are platonic. That's all. Thank you for giving this a chance!!

\-----  
r/Ghosts - Posted by u/Throwaway53829 1 hour ago

Before anything else, I want to say that I’m an agnostic-atheist with a lean towards atheist. So, please, take that into account before haranguing me in the replies. 

Basically, I think there’s a ghost haunting my apartment. 

The past month I’ve started noticing my stuff going missing, mostly kitchen utensils. I didn’t think much of it at first since I’m not the type of person who usually keeps track of their stuff, but I know I’ve been losing a bunch of them when more than half of my spoons and forks have vanished into thin air. Nonetheless, I didn’t think much of it because, as I’ve pointed out, I’m a non-believer of the supernatural. 

However, the situation got a lot more real, and accordingly, a lot worse. 

The ghost had started stealing non-kitchen related objects. Because of this I was prompted to create a spreadsheet of the all things I own. I’ve lost my calculator, ruler, back scratcher, set of coloring markers, g-tech pen (favorite), physical copy of Wage Labour and Capital (also a favorite), and a shit ton of my culinary equipment, and that’s only an account for the past week. Just a while ago I lost my towel after taking a shower, making me drip water all over my floor, which caused me to slip on said floor. So yeah, it’s getting annoying. 

Any help would be nice. Much thanks. 

Tl;dr A ghost is haunting my apartment and stealing my stuff. I don’t like this very much. 

\-----

Stacks of papers and books on Dream’s desk remained Appalachian. The dusk was falling rapidly as the sun replaced the moon’s stead, yet Dream’s eyes, now bloodshot, had not grasped rest.

It happened again. 

Dream swore he left his laptop on the couch. Apparently, he did not, but empirical evidence suggested otherwise. He paced back and forth in deep thought, sat down, and buried his head into his hands. He retraced his steps for the thirteenth time in the past hour, but every recollection he had of his cherished laptop all pointed to the confines of his couch. 

“Where did it go?” he’d been screaming all night, but deep within the inner machinations of his mind he knew.

No, they wouldn’t dare.

\---

It was 10:30 AM when Dream gave up. He had lost his $999 MacBook Air to a ghost who had no use for it. His paper was nearing its due, and time was only moving forward. He fiddled with his phone before hurling it to his couch and kicking the wall, making him wince in regret. Concrete should not be this hard, he thought. Apart from that, his mind was drawing blanks. 

Laptop for sale  
Secondhand laptop less than 1000 dollars  
How to talk to ghosts  
Ouija board for sale

He initially intended the last two searches to jest, but sleep caught up to him, and he actually started considering it. He found a site, SpiritsMiscellaneous.com, which was sketchy at best and just plain bullshit at worst. "Whatever", he relegated himself to his impending doom. 

There he saw a simple 5-step tutorial on ghost communication, or whatever it’s called. All he needed was a piece of paper and a makeshift planchette (in his case, a bottle cap). He swiftly scribbled the English alphabet and the numbers 0-9 onto the piece of paper before sighing in resignation. He stared at his work as his self-preservation yelled at him. As much as he detested the idea of the supernatural, he had an inkling this was going to end badly. "Whatever", he took one more step towards his impending doom. 

Dream placed both the tips of his middle fingers onto the bottle cap. What was he going to say? Hi? Please give my laptop back? Fuck you for stealing my stuff? In the end, he decided that he was going to be forthright about his intentions. Screw formalities. If the ghost expected politeness out of his aweary soul, then they should've at least had the decency to ask for consent before consigning all his things to the void. Plain and simple. 

"Give my laptop back", Dream briskly moved the bottle cap. 

He held his breath and waited. 

And waited. 

And waited. 

For nothing.

Why was he surprised. 

He exhaled a long, drained sigh before dropping his arms atop the table. Goodbye, $999 and goodbye, A+ on Literature. He groggily stood up and marched towards his bedroom either to cry, punch the wall, or sleep. He decided to do all three in that order. Basing on principle, he should’ve been repulsed by the fact that he thought the whole ordeal would’ve worked. But, he’s long been wearied out; a man can only do so much without sleep. 

As Dream hurried to the comfort of his bedroom, he felt a wave of chill and fear travel through his spine. The lights had gone out. This was it. He was nearing his doom. He stepped towards the kitchen and headed towards the door as he noticed the rapid flickering of the light above him. A stentorian screech from the kitchen table immediately woke him from his stupor as the contents of the table shook and crashed to the floor. A spate of blaring discordance propagated throughout Room 201. The residents of Room 202 were going to have a field day with this one. 

Amid the disharmony, Dream had his eyes on the piece of paper he had concocted few moments earlier. The planchette had started moving in quick successions. 

B-E-H-I-N-D  
Y-O-U


	2. PECULIAR? The ghost offers a deal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter for the day :^D

Dream didn’t think twice before dashing towards the door. He wasn’t even sure what it said; he just started booking it when the planchette started moving. Curiosity killed the cat, and Dream didn’t want to die just yet. A palpable sense of dread superseded anything he had felt prior as he heard an audible click from the door. He twisted the knob a couple of times before he recited a jumbled mess of the Hail Mary from memory. He was definitely getting his atheism card revoked after this, if there was going to be an after. 

This was it. This was his doom. 

“Ehem” he heard a voice that was not his own. He held a breath and turned around. Whatever was going to happen, he hoped it would happen fast. 

Before him stood a wight, translucent and Caucasian. He was wearing a gray hoodie with a huge G plastered on it, black jeans, and rubber shoes. Despite everything that had happened in the past thirty minutes, the apparition looked normal, and in its normalcy, it was peculiar. If one were to adjust the opacity to a hundred, he would have looked just like any other person on the street. He was just a dude. 

“Before you start pissing your pants, I’m not a vengeful spirit, alright?” the not-vengeful spirit spoke. “This was going to happen one way or another, so I decided to show up now instead of any other time when I’m unprovoked.”

Like a rabbit caught in the headlights, Dream stood by the door with little to no movement. He could hear himself breathe. He cleared his throat and gathered his composure. 

“So, about my laptop?” Dream asked with aplomb.

“Straight to the point, aren’t you?” the ghost said with an audible accent, now that Dream noticed. British, he concluded.

“Yeah, people often say that about me.”

Silence ensued. Apparently, the ghost didn’t know how to respond to that. Dream realized it was harder to breathe in awkwardness than in fear. 

“How about we exchange names first?” Dream suggested. 

“Okay then. My name’s George, and I assume your name is Clay? Though, you prefer the name ‘Dream’ as it is what you’re most known for.”

“Quite the stalker.”

“Not much to do when you’re stuck within the four walls of 201.”

George paced around and decided to lean on the tabletop. How can a ghost interact with the physical world? Dream had no clue.

“So, George,” Dream relaxed but not quite. “What are you planning to do with my laptop?”

“That’s... an answer I’m not willing to give as of the moment.”

“What? Are you going to sell it to the ghost auction?” 

“Ha. Ha.”

Dream furrowed his eyebrows in response. He was growing exasperated, he’d realized. All the pent-up anger of losing his laptop and progress was slowly unraveling itself. George had taken note of this. 

“Alright. How about a- How about I offer a deal?” George fumbled with his words. 

“What deal?”

George exhaled (how? Dream was at a loss), deep in thought. He had an inscrutable look on his face. It took a while for Dream to notice that this was a look of embarrassment. If ghosts could blush, he’d bet George was blushing.

“In exchange for your laptop,” George aimlessly looked everywhere except for Dream’s face. He was looking at the couch as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. “You have to teach me Minecraft.” 

Dream could barely hear the words escape George’s mouth. Silent moments passed, and then the room was filled with Dream’s boisterous laughter. The absurdity of it all. 

“Okay, deal.”

Flummoxed, George stared at him. 

“You’re not going to ask why?”

“Do I have to?” 

“N-No.”

“Alright then. Handshake?”

George hesitantly extended his arm as Dream did the same. As expected, George’s hand was arctic cold. (How were they able to interact? Dream had no idea).

And so, a deal was made.


	3. HEART TO HEART? The ghost listens to a woebegone me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!! Thanks for still reading <3 xoxo

Dream just stared. He kept staring as the ghost boy pulled his laptop out of his ass, metaphorically. In a literal sense, George disappeared and came back with the laptop. Even if he did pull a laptop out of his ass, the awe on Dream’s face would have remained the same. The shock eventually wore out, and Dream was left with the absurdity of the situation. He couldn’t stop laughing. 

“Can you stop that?” 

“Stop what?”

“Laughing.” 

“What? A man can’t laugh in his own home?”

George rolled his eyes. “Okay, just tell me what to do.”

Dream explains to him the controls and the basic ins and outs of Minecraft. Surprisingly, George was a fast-learner; at certain times it even seemed as if he had been playing out of instinct. So far, things were going smooth until, unbeknownst to Dream, George trotted towards a high cliff with a bucket of water at hand. Dream was off to get a cup of coffee when the brewing fiasco was about to happen. 

“What the hell are you doing?” 

“I’m doing that thing you do when you get cornered in your Manhunt videos.”

”Tell me you’re not going to attempt MLG water right now. That’s hard to do for a beginn-” A loud splat and a red screen interrupted Dream’s onslaught of sermons, which gradually turned into a succession of clamorous laughter. 

“Stop laughing! It’s not funny,” George smiled despite himself. Dream was belly-laughing at that point. 

“Y-you just-” Dream giggled. “You just jumped off a high cliff! You didn’t even place the water!”

“Yeah, I can see that.” George deadpanned. 

\---

“I’m not teaching you the boat thing.”

“Yes, you are teaching me the boat thing.”

George was a stubborn ghost. He had been pestering Dream about the ‘boat thing’ for the past fifteen minutes because he thought it was cool. 

“How is that going to help you beat the Ender dragon?” 

Dream was suddenly reminded of the terms of their agreement. All he had to do to get his hands on the laptop, which was rightfully his, was to help George, the ghost thief, beat the Ender dragon. The absurdity of it all.

“Please?”

“No.”

“Pretty please?”

Evading the ghost’s personal space, Dream leaned in and stared into George’s eyes with fervor. “No,” he said, accentuating the ‘O’. His paper was due in ten hours; he couldn’t afford to make ducks and drakes of the time. 

“Okay, fine, how about another deal? You decide on the terms this time.” George offered. Dream actually gave this a thought. A beat had passed before George noticed a sad glint on Dream’s face. 

“Okay,” Dream’s voice had gone hoarse. “Remember that g-tech you stole? If I teach you the boat thing, you’re going to give it back.”

“May I ask why?”

“It’s from a friend,” Dream was hesitant to continue, and George didn’t press further. “Died in a car crash. It was my fault, really.”

Dream could feel his throat tighten. The room, now pregnant with silence, suffocated Dream, whose breath was hitching a bit. 

“I can pass a message to him, i-if you’d like,” George flustered, snapping Dream out of his stupor. 

“Can you?”

“Yeah, assuming he’s like me, a spirit who hasn’t moved on from the physical realm.”

Dream wondered about the plethora of words he had yet to open after the premature death of his best friend. He thought about the what ifs and could have beens, the promises left in dust, the apologies and regrets, and the untouched memories. He wondered if Sapnap knew how it felt to have wandered the world with no hand to pull him back or push him forward. He wondered and wondered, yet no words sufficed. 

George saw this internal dilemma. He wanted to offer some sort of advice, but he knew this wasn’t his to fight. At last, Dream’s struggle came to a conclusion.

“Tell him,” Dream thought once more. “I’m sorry.”

Heart heavy with a crestfallen message, George looked at him pitifully and dissipated into the spirit realm.

\---

George came back after five minutes max. The spirit world had a bone to pick with time. 

“That fast?”

“Yep. Gave him the word.”

”How do I know you’re not bullshitting?”

“Because how else would I know you pissed your pants in the fifth grade? Or when people started calling you pissbaby-”

“Okay, okay, okay. So you had a little chat with him. Did-did he want to relay anything?”

George feigned thinking, hand on his chin. “Apart from the embarrassing anecdotes, he did want to tell you something.”

Dream’s ear perked and waited in anticipation. 

“He said that he misses you,” Dream let out a breath he didn’t think he’d been holding, “and that you’re a bitch boy for still wallowing in misery after all these years. Get over it.” 

Dream glared at the ghost boy. 

”He said it not me.”

\---

Comfortable silence passed between the two while Dream taught George how to MLG boat on lava. It took about an hour for George to master it, which was honestly a pleasant surprise. 

“Here’s the pen by the way,” George casually flung the g-tech pen towards an unsuspecting Dream. 

Dream gazed at the g-tech in his hand before muttering a “Thank you.”

“For what? The pen or the message?”

“Don’t be an ass,” Dream hesitated before adding, “for both.”

George grinned.


	4. THE MEANS TO AN END! The ghost beats the Ender dragon.

It was five hours until D-day, the deadline for Dream’s paper. George found a stronghold and was currently on the hunt for Endermen. Dream was confident they’d beat the Ender dragon within the next hour or two at this rate, which partly undid the sourness he felt prior. Now that George was getting comfortable with his play, Dream decided that it was his turn to pester George about his past, partly out of curiosity, mostly to bother him. 

“So, George, how’d you die?”

“You can’t just ask people how they died, Dream.”

“Sorry, I didn’t get the memo on ghost etiquette.”

“Ha. Ha.”

Dream shifted in his seat and toyed with his phone before he continued his raid on George’s mind. 

“Did you drown? Did you hit your head so hard you died? An illness? Or, was it something more sinister?”

“Look, even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Why not? I’m quite disheartened, George, that you wouldn’t trust your living friend about the context of your death.”

“What makes you think we’re friends?”

Dream rolled his eyes at that one. He felt comfortable in George’s presence, and he was sure the feeling was reciprocated. They had been exchanging anecdotes for the past hours, too, with a sliver of banter. In fact, this was the most fun Dream had in a while; who knew talking to spirits would be a plausible, even worthwhile, experience? Indeed, God thrived in the peculiarity. 

“Look, if it makes you feel better, I seriously don’t know how I died. One day I just woke up in here and knew I had kicked the bucket.”

“Since when? Do you even age?”

“Since 2012, I think. And, no, I don’t age. Spirits don’t age. They’re just stuck in limbo until they move on.”

“Hm…” Dream decided whether he’d press further or stop. “Why Minecraft?”

“It’s… complicated.”

“Come on, tell me. We have all day,” Dream fibbed.

“No, we don’t. I know you’ve been itching to get your hands on your laptop ever since I came.”

“Fine, I’ll backtrack,” Dream sighed. “Why steal?”

“It makes me feel something.”

Dream could understand. Floating around in an endless routine for eight years can do numbers on the person, living or dead. Plus, Dream would know since he’s somewhat of a connoisseur of merely existing and not living. Wake up, eat, occasionally upload Minecraft videos, and sleep. Rinse and repeat. 

“It makes me feel like I still exist. Like I’m still here, not breathing but existing, at least,” George continued. 

“I get you,” A heap of comfortable silence filled the room once again, save for the constant tapping of the keyboard. Dream rested his chin on the the table and added as an afterthought, “you’re going to return the stuff you stole once you’re done with this, right?”

“You’d have to make another deal for that one.”

Dream rolled his eyes. 

\---

Dream waited. It took exactly two hours of constant pestering and peeving to make George open up.

“I thought you wouldn’t ask!” Both of them were in the midst of a heated conversation.

“That was,” Dream halted and counted on his fingers, “…five, six, seven hours ago! I’ve changed my mind.”

“Quite of a wishy-washy person, huh, Dream?” George said with an emphasis on Dream’s name.

“I changed my mind once; that’s unfair.”

“Why do you want to know so much? You’re so obsessed with me,” George grinned as Dream sighed. Moments passed with a sulking Dream.

“Stop sulking.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Okay.”

“Fine. I am.”

George momentarily stopped playing. Looking at Dream, he rolled his eyes and caved in.

“I want to play Minecraft because it’s how I,” George paused and reconsidered, “how I peacefully pass on from the physical world.”

“Meaning?”

”It means exactly what it means-- beating Minecraft is my golden ticket to heaven or hell, or whatever judgment was bestowed upon me.”

“So… you’ll disappear? Once you beat the Ender dragon?” Dream visibly deflated.

“I know, I know. You thought I was going to be your Casper or whatever, but all great things must come to an end,” George also deflated. 

Both sat in silence as they let the fact dawn on them simultaneously. 

“Why Minecraft though?”

“Who knows? I just know that every spirit has their last task to do, and mine’s beating a video game that the guy who lives in the apartment I’m haunting is coincidentally very good at. Cheers to that, I guess.”

Now, George was visibly moping. He had gone quiet until he placed all the eyes of Ender onto the Ender portal. 

“This is it, huh?” George said.

“Don’t get so sad. I’m sure hell will be kind to you.”

”Fuck off, Dream.”

\---

And with a swift arrow to the crystal and a sonorous explosion to the dragon, the time of adventure has begun to wane. Both Dream and George roared in excitement despite feeling everything but. It was one hour until Dream’s deadline, which was enough to exchange parting messages and to fool around a bit. 

“So, George, any dying messages?”

“Ha. Ha.”

“Seriously. Anything you want to say to your temporary best friend?”

“You’re not…” George paused as he tried to find the right words. “You’re not temporary. You’re a permanent one. Or something.”

“How heartwarming.”

George rolled his eyes. “Take it or leave it.”

A beat passed as George added, “I’ll remember you. For real. Thank you. If I were to be granted access to the Pearly Gates, I’ll be your guardian angel. Or something.”

“I take it that’s the limit to how sweet you’ll get?”

There it was, the inscrutable look on George’s face. “Yeah, yeah.” George’s attention was on the couch again. 

\---

It was some time in the afternoon when Dream passed his paper. George was still around for some reason; though, he knew that wouldn’t last. He yawned and groggily headed towards his bedroom as George sat on the couch and stared into the abyss. 

“Gonna sleep now, ghost boy.”

George snapped out of his daze, looked at Dream, and with melancholy said his final words. 

“Sweet dreams, Dream.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and feedback are much appreciated! :^)))


End file.
